Water
by palesadpuppet
Summary: Ryou would appreciate it if Bakura would not insist on wasting water. Bakura does not care. Yami no Bakura x Ryou Bakura genfic.


Water

_[because the thief is fond of showers]_

"Bakura, _please?_"

The thief shifts slightly, his arms folded behind his head, a feline smirk curling the corners of his mouth; warm water patters on his face and chest. He is feeling too decadently lazy to tell the boy to shut up and so chooses to ignore him instead.

"Bakura, I'm not trying to bother you," Ryou says, and there is a slight edge of desperation to his voice. "I know I am, but- you're wasting a lot of water."

"I am," the thief says easily, his eyes closed. He runs his tongue over his lips.

"You've been in there for hours, Bakura," the boy says, and Bakura can almost picture him panicking in his soul room. His smirk widens. "Please. Can't you take a bath instead?"

"Bathes get cold and I like showers better," Bakura replies, wrinkling his nose as a drop of water gets into it; he rolls over and lies his head down on the bottom of the shower, feeling pleasantly waterlogged, his thick hair clinging to his shoulders.

"Bakura-" Ryou begins again, and the thief is preparing to knock the boy out just so he'll shut up for a minute when the doorbell rings. "There, see? Please, just let me take over so I can answer that."

"I could just as well send the Shadows to eat whoever it is," Bakura said casually; grinning, he ignores Ryou's spluttered protests and rises slowly from the floor of the shower, switching off the water and reaching for a towel. As he's doing so, he widens his eyes and adopts his most practiced expression of mindless friendliness. With the towel around his shoulders, he glances into the mirror. Perfect.

"I don't look like that," the boy says, sounding vaguely annoyed now.

"So why does it always fool your friends?" Bakura shoots back, squeezing the water from his hair.

"Because you- _hey!_ Don't go out there like that! You don't know who's at the door!"

Bakura just laughs, the towel slung low around his hips now, and walks out to answer the door.

* * *

"Bakura, _please._"

The thief shifts, his arms folded behind his head, and then lies still under the cold, drumming rhythm of the water on his face. "I thought you didn't want me to waste water. Are you going to argue that I'm using more than my share of rain now?"

"We're going to catch a cold if we stay out here! I have school tomorrow!"

"If you get a cold, you'll just go anyway. You always do."

"Bakura!"

The thief chuckles. "What if I told you I couldn't get down?"

A pause. "You've been up and down from the roof before. I know you can do it."

"I haven't done it often in the rain. And if I slip and kill us both- well, just you, really- then I bet you'll be wishing that I'd just gotten you the cold."

"You won't fall."

"Such faith in me, landlord. Wherever did it come from?"

"Bakura, please?"

Bakura sighs a little and laughs. "Only a few more minutes, if you shut up now." The boy doesn't answer and he takes the silence as acceptance. He's privately grateful for that; he'd be more than willing to stay out in the rain for hours if Ryou disagreed with him, but he has no desire to be the host of a sick body. It's happened before; on certain occasions, which he particularly doesn't want to relive, he's had to endure Ryou coughing and sneezing in his soul room throughout entire duels.

Ryou murmurs a thank you as Bakura finally gets up, walking to the edge of the building and climbing down the side of it until he reaches their apartment's only window. Once inside, he shakes himself off like a dog and goes to change into dry clothes.

"You're welcome," the thief says finally, about ten minutes later, when he is sprawled on the couch with a bottle of stolen wine on the table beside him. Ryou has gone quiet again and doesn't answer, but Bakura shakes his head and smirks anyway as he pours out a glass and lifts it in a toast to himself.

He thinks he hears Ryou thank him again later, when he's starting to drift off, but the words are on the edge of a dream and long forgotten by the time he wakes up.


End file.
